This weekend

Maybe we're not the biggest lame-o's

Pretty busy weekend including a little trip to the Roloff farm home of the stars of the Discovery Channel's, "Little People, Big World" a show about a family of little people. Take about schlock fest and a little full of themselves. One of my first impressions was the price of dirt has gone dramatically up with a small mason jar of apparently Oregon's finest is $8.00 a pop. Other than that the pumpkin patch wasn't too bad you could definitely tell that some of the money from the show had trickled down to the patch which considering it only cost two bucks to park was nice. Most people were there of course hoping to gawk at the Roloff's who fluttered about the patch and farm giving tours (that cost six bucks a piece and each time the trailers went out they were full to the brim) and posing for pictures, Bill got a picture with Amy (the mom). Cameras were a constant presence with signs posted in prominent places stating that by stepping onto the grounds you were giving consent to be on television. Don't think we'll be showing up anytime soon as the cameras spent most of the time up by the house. Funny thing though was that as soon as we stepped out of the car Brynn spotted Matt (the father) sitting in a gator chatting it up with a camera crew and had a total celebrity moment including the infamous "point". It was all I could do to not laugh/be embarrassed as I walked away. I love her but I do not think i'll let her live it down. One of my favorite features was the pumpkin fun house, whoever put that together is quite talented and pretty funny. It was one of the many features that made it a really decent patch. Craziest thing was the along with the standard petting zoo (which Brynn left deeming it too stinky) they had an exotic flair with Leo the lion, a cub of five months. Other than that Halloween was pretty low key with my call to slave labor with my first day alone at Soccerplex. Went pretty well though it was kind of a drag trying to find everything. Worst thing was was cleaning the women's bathroom and their extra "garbage" Grooooooooossssssss! I really dig the facility and everyone seems pretty cool, I like the prospect of helping grow the kids programs which will bring me a greater satisfaction to going to work everyday. This won't be our last Halloween and though it ended anti-climatic it brought the promise of busier Sundays to come. Today I was called to serve a teacher in the Elders Quorum. I am so grateful to be able to serve in the church and understandably somewhat antsy after not being able to do anything for a couple of months. Not that we should aspire for any position or calling but I know that has been my experience to grow giving me opportunity to strengthen my testimony in Jesus Christ.

The final tango

Summer is winding down and we have been really getting out there. Having landed the apartment in Portland and having a whole week off we've had the chance to really get out there. It's been a fantastic week.

We attended the Monmouth Stake Temple night and it was a beautiful time. Being able to again strengthen our faith and renew our commitment to living the gospel brings so much joy. And the amount of people who responded to President Petersen's call to fill the chapel makes me so proud to see the saints heed the Lord's servant. So many came that we were able to witness the selfless nature of brethren who when seeing that we were filled to capacity and there were women without seats graciously got up and offered their own. It was good to see that gallantry still has a place in the world.

OMSI was amazing. We took Tyler, Connor and Trent to see the museum (Trent being a first timer). It was funny because we had never been to a musuem together as a couple (the only other time was when I arranged for Brynn and I to go with Trent to Willamette University's art musuem, Trent acting as my beard) so Brynn didn't know that i'm a slowpoke when it comes to looking at things. Especially when most of the exhibits are interactive, I can spend ages in each section. So as the others ended up zipping through I was moving as slow as molasses. This obviously didn't sit well with Connor because as I was nearing the end of the second exhibit she ingeniously (I think having had seen this technique practiced with Karli and Bill) invoked the wife clause ("Brynn wants to see you") and off we went to the CSI exhibit. All in all it was a fantastic way to spend the day seeing ourselves do the weather on TV, making paper airplanes, flying into space in a Gemini capsule. I think we were there for four hours and I hadn't made it all over the museum.



One of the biggest rip offs was the State Fair. We each hadn't been for years personally because of bad experience working there with the carnies. Ten bucks to get in and no way we are going to pony up three to four dollars to get on the lamesauce rides, we ended up going back and forth up the aisles looking at people's wares and food. Ended up finding a new exhibit to the fair. It was a Sea Lion outreach program that held shows every day to educate people about sea lions and it featured two sea lions that had been rescued. The neat thing was that you could buy a ticket to get a kiss from the sea lions and sensing that this would be the one redeeming factor of our outing we each got a ticket. The kiss was so cold and wet but not as gross as you would think. Each dollar also went to funding the program and the sea lions themselves.

The evil dentist

I guess the dentist would be really disappointed that we misrepresented a visit to his office with an excursion to Dairy Queen. When we took Connor to lunch we had the pleasure of learning that the fifth graders were starting puberty class today and of the oppressive recess policies of Lyle ES. Brynn eats cheese.

-Clifford